Poisoning Survey of Referred Children to Afzalipour Hospital in Kerman in 2009-2010

Introduction: In all Poisoned prevalence in children is about 70% which 90% out of them are preventable. Poisoning is different in children because of its relation to geographical region, culture, economic and socioeconomic. This study was designed to find the epidemiology of poisoning in children who referred to emergency center of Afzalipour hospital in Kerman in 2009-2010. Method: This descriptive cross sectional study was done from 20th of March 2009 to 20th march 2010. The population was all children who referred to Afzalipour emergency section by clinicians. The tools of data collection were a questionnaire with variables such as time, sex, age, location, education of parents and the toxic agent. The data analyzed by statistical software Minitab. Results: Age of the referred patient was from one month to 13years old, and 299 of them live in city and 98 in countryside. The season had significant effect on poisoning and the most of cases were referred in winter (p<0.001). Also educated parents who had at least bachelor had less cases in comparison with others and it was significant (p<0.001). The causes of poisoning were medicine (34.7%), narcotic agent (26.7%), food poisoning (14.9%), stinging (10.3%), petroleum and its products (6.5%), hygienic materials (4.8%) and finally insecticide (1.5%). Prevalence in 1-3 years old was more than the other age groups. Conclusion: In this study prevalence of narcotic agent and medicine had a high level which is preventable, so it is necessary that media have program related to these subject.